The Last Time The Bed Dipped
by HecateA
Summary: Salazar can feel his time in the castle coming to an end, but he doesn't know in what world he's meant to leave Helga behind. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **Enjoy!

**Hogwarts: **Assignment #10, Demonology Task #1, Write about someone falling from grace or a position of power

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **NA

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**The Last Time The Bed Dipped**

There was a dip in the bed, and then a tug of the blankets towards the right. He could feel the mattress shift as Helga snuggled into the pillow on the left side of his bed which, at this point, always smelled like cinnamon and molasses and all the other things he associated with her.

"I don't want to talk," Helga said.

"Okay," Salazar said. He didn't turn around to face her. Usually he would, so that he would feel the warmth of her breath as she told him about his day and have a chance to guess at her features in the dark.

"If we talk we'll argue," Helga said.

"That is how it's been, yes," Salazar said. And not just with Helga; with Godric and Rowena as well in their own, bitter ways. "But you never had to—"

"I am not picking sides, Salazar, I am speaking my mind," Helga said. She sighed. "See, this is why I did not want to talk."

"You are the one who came here."

"To be with you, not to talk," Helga said.

"You cannot have it both ways," Salazar said, his back still to her. "You keep trying, you keep acting like you can, but that is not how this works."

"I do not want it both ways, I want it the way it used to be," she said. "But it is becoming increasingly clear that that's not an option. You and Godric can barely stand to look at one another. And I don't want to talk."

"I do, Helga," he said. He turned around to face her, and could see the outline of her mountainous curls in the dark. He desperately wanted to reach out and touch them, trace the spiral from roots to tip with his finger like he usually would. "I need to know that you are on my side."

"Sides?" Helga said. She turned around to face him. "Salazar, I am not looking at this as _sides. _I am looking at the issues, the stakes, the consequences of the things you're saying, the value of these children's lives and their educations and homes and..."

"So you are on their side," Salazar said.

"You knew this," Helga said. "I _said _so. You need to listen to me…"

"I trusted you," Salazar said.

"If you trusted me, it is because you know me well, and if you know me well then you know I will never be anything but honest," Helga said. "And even if you know me well, you are putting me in an impossible place. You are asking me to choose between you and something I know to be just and fair."

His stomach sank a bit. This was a fight that he had known very few to win over the years he had known Helga.

"It scares me to see you go this way—it feels like the path you are charting for yourself is going downwards. The issue of Muggleborn students is not one on which I will budge. Like I said, I did not come to talk."

Salazar flipped back around. The shifting mattress underneath them told him that she'd turned away too.

"I just wanted to be with my best friend," Helga said quietly. "My world."

"I wanted mine too," Salazar said. "Out there, today. When I stood before Rowena and Godric, when we said the things we said to each other, and I was alone before the world."

Helga didn't answer, but if he held his breath and was very quiet, he could hear her breathing deeply and evenly, trying to steady herself.

"You need to choose," Salazar said finally. The words had been on his mind for the better part of the month. To be honest, he had wanted some part of her to know this—to know that he needed her, that he couldn't do anything without her anymore, that their roots were too tangled for them to come so far apart. But she hadn't, and so now he had to ask.

"I have," Helga said quietly. "When you weren't listening I chose, but you did not hear. I did not come to talk, Salazar. I came because after tomorrow, after we settle this discussion once and for all, there will be no coming back."

His stomach sunk. Her words had been as gentle and calm as Helga's always were, as Helga herself always was. But for all intents and purposes, she could have balled her first and hit him square in the abdomen. Perhaps it would even have been preferable. Because this, this quiet acknowledgement that they were broken and could not go on—this quiet admittance that this impasse couldn't be crossed, that they had gone too far down their perpendicular paths, and that he may even be leaving this place they had made their home… anything would be better.

The blanket tightened a little bit as Helga pulled it against herself more, seeking comfort. She curled up into a little ball, anxious and tired.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you too," Helga said. "And I will keep loving you, but I will keep believing in what is just. I just wanted one more night."

Salazar took a deep breath and turned over. He scooted to her side of the bed and pulled her towards him so that they'd meet halfway—perhaps the last way they would meet halfway. She nestled herself against him and he tucked her against him too, resting his chin on her corkscrew curls. His arm wrapped around her waist and came to rest around her. His fingers found the familiar softness of her nightdress, his nose inhaled the familiar smell of the vanilla extract from the kitchen that she sometimes dabbed behind her ears because she liked the smell. They fit together so well, it felt impossible to Salazar that what she was saying was true—that they wouldn't be like this, she and him and the dip in this bed against the world—until the end of their days. He had made his peace with leaving the castle, but never in a thousand years had he imagined leaving her.

"We don't have to talk," he agreed.

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**Stacked with: **MC4A; Shipping War; Winter Bingo; Hogwarts

**Individual Challenge(s): **Hola, Bonjour, Jambo; Hufflepuff MC; Slytherin MC; Founders Four (Y); Brush; Seeds; Tissue Warning; Olden Times; Old Shoes; Themes & Things A (Change); Themes & Things B (Loneliness); Themes & Things C (Pillow); Ethnic & Present; Rian-Russo Inversion; Shipwreck; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

**Word Count: **1030

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_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Helga Hufflepuff/Salazar Slytherin

**List (Prompt): **Fall Big List (Sharing a Bed)

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_**Winter Bingo**_

**Space (prompt): **5E (Love)


End file.
